Just a quick one. I was struck dumb today at the abysmal attempts at internal communication from my employers, and had to get it off my chest. I currently work for a well-known, UK-based retail chain and was lost for words today when we found out at 4.30pm, one hour before close of business, that the entire chain has a mid-season sale starting tomorrow.
Apparently, all the other stores found out about this yesterday afternoon (still not a great deal of notice) via e-mail. We only discovered the existence of said sale when another store called us up with a query. Otherwise we'd never have known, and would have been the only store in the country not to be holding a sale! Fun and games!
The alleged e-mail was never received by our store. The company relies heavily on communication by e-mail (and rarely any other form) and this is a classic example of errors which occur on a regular basis, so I'm told. So the e-mail, for whatever reason, never got to us. What's a company to do? Follow up all electronic correspondence with a phone call? Hardly practical (although the company does have a reliance on regular 'ring-rounds' for updates and progress reports). Of course, technology has made internal communication much, much, much easier. But, as demonstrated, it's not infallible.
And before you say it, it wasn't a mistake at our end. Store e-mails are checked twice daily and are archived so that no information can be lost.
Good example of bad internal communications, eh? At least it made the last hour of my day fly past, as we ran about like blue-arsed flies trying to get everything sorted for opening tomorrow. It's my day off tomorrow, thank God.
Apparently, all the other stores found out about this yesterday afternoon (still not a great deal of notice) via e-mail. We only discovered the existence of said sale when another store called us up with a query. Otherwise we'd never have known, and would have been the only store in the country not to be holding a sale! Fun and games!
The alleged e-mail was never received by our store. The company relies heavily on communication by e-mail (and rarely any other form) and this is a classic example of errors which occur on a regular basis, so I'm told. So the e-mail, for whatever reason, never got to us. What's a company to do? Follow up all electronic correspondence with a phone call? Hardly practical (although the company does have a reliance on regular 'ring-rounds' for updates and progress reports). Of course, technology has made internal communication much, much, much easier. But, as demonstrated, it's not infallible.
And before you say it, it wasn't a mistake at our end. Store e-mails are checked twice daily and are archived so that no information can be lost.
Good example of bad internal communications, eh? At least it made the last hour of my day fly past, as we ran about like blue-arsed flies trying to get everything sorted for opening tomorrow. It's my day off tomorrow, thank God.
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